In the construction industry, particularly the residential construction industry, the most common materials for finishing walls, floors and ceilings are sheet materials, exemplified by drywall, plywood, wall board, paneling and the like. By far the most common material for finishing interior walls and ceilings is drywall. Drywall, like other sheet materials is typically “hung” by being fastened directly to framing components such as studs or joists that are assembled to form the skeleton of a housing frame. Such studs or joists are typically made of framing grade lumber dimensioned as 2″×4″, 2″×6″ or 2″×8″ pieces and the drywall is hung by screwing or nailing the sheet directly into the studs or joists.
FIG. 1 illustrates the use of studs and joist according to the prior art. FIG. 1A shows an example floor plan for a residence illustrating the placement and location of studs 20 and a plurality of corners 31 and intersections 33 that define an interior space. In the construction industry, the distance between the center points of adjacent studs is fixed at a standardized length, typically 16 inches, except at corners and intersections. The typical arrangement of studs 20 at a corner 31 or at an intersection 33 is detailed in FIGS. 1B and 1C, respectively. In the typical arrangement, three studs 20 are required to establish the mounting surfaces for making the perpendicular turns. In a corner, stud 20a serves as the fastening surface for the end of the sheet material hung along wall A, stud 20b serves as the fastening surface for the end of the sheet material hung along wall B, and stud 20c serves as a corner stud to define the end of the corner and stud 20d serves merely to maintain the standard spacing between studs. In the case of an intersection 33, there are two equivalents of stud 20a on either side of wall B along with stud 20b. 
While this standard construction technique has enjoyed much success and is practice throughout the industry, it is wasteful with respect to the amount of wood needed to provide the mounting surfaces, especially for orthogonal junctions between sheet materials.
There have been some efforts in the industry to reduce the use of lumber or to otherwise facilitate the process of hanging sheet material. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,225 discloses a metal bracket that may be used as a substitute for studs for flush mounting of adjacent dry wall pieces across a flat surface. The bracket contains two extended flanges with pre-drilled screw holes and an intermediate rib portion that lies perpendicular to the flanges. The rib portion has a height that is purposefully set to be less than the thickness of the drywall material so that when two adjacent pieces of drywall are fastened to the flanges on either side of the rib, no part of the rib protrudes and the joint can be easily hidden with finishing tape and compound. While, the bracket disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,225 may be useful for joining adjacent pieces of drywall on a flat surface, it is not suitable for joining pieces of drywall that intersect at orthorgonal angles, such as the perpendicular angles of a corner, a junction between a ceiling and a wall, or a room intersection.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art to provide devices and methods that facilitate sheet material mounting and that reduce the requirements for studs, particularly those used at orthogonal junctions of framing.